The Party of the European Left took part in the tribute to the International Brigades in Spain

The Party of the European Left took part in the tribute to the International Brigades in Spain

02 March 2017

“There's a valley in Spain called Jarama

It's a place that we all know so well

It was there that we fought against the Fascists

We saw a peaceful valley turn to hell”

(Jarama Valley song, in the Spanish Civil War)

"Jarama Valley" is one of the most emblematic songs of the struggle of the International Brigades in the defence of the Spanish Republic. The famous Battle of Jarama was fought 80 years ago few kilometres from Madrid. English, Irish, American, Russian, German, Italian… brigadiers joined the troops of the Republican government to combat the Franco´s putschists. It was one of the bloodiest and more decisive battles of the Spanish Civil war in which more than 2.500 members of the International Brigade died but which avoided the siege of Madrid and postponed the end of the war.

In Rivas Vaciamadrid it was commemorated the 80 anniversary of the Battle of Jarama paying tribute to the International Brigades, also called “Volunteers of Freedom”. More than 60,000 Brigadiers came to Spain to give everything in the first act of international resistance against fascism, fighting valiantly for freedom and democracy beside the Spanish people.

They came from 53 countries. They were communists, socialists, anarchists, republicans... with different roots, religions and ideologies but united by the same international commitment. With the Nazism advancing in Europe they knew that the freedom of all the peoples was going to be decided in Spain. And soon it was shown that they were right.

The Party of the European Left (EL) took part in the organization of this two-days tribute in the locality of Rivas Vaciamadrid, 17 kilometres from Madrid. Obey Ament, of the direction of the French Communist Party (PCF), country from which came the largest number of brigadiers (10,000), was the one who took the floor on behalf of the EL. He did so recalling "today again the vile beast of neo-fascism lurks ". He adde that currently the war is used to overwhelm the peoples and how millions of people have to flee to escape to the death.

Obey Ament congratulated the organizers for the work carried out in favour of the Memory, Truth and Justice, "Memory that anchor us in the inheritance of the internationalism of which we, the left and the progressives, are carriers. A legacy of solidarity and defence of the universality of democracy", he said, recalling the words of Dolores Ibaurri, Pasionaria. He ended up by appealing to the validity and to the actuality of that battle for the freedom that “calls us to continue the struggle of those who defended the Spanish Republic; to continue it with all our diversity and in the unitt. This way we will follow the example of those Members of the International Brigade”.